Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!turing.toronto.edu!ruhtra
Newsgroups: comp.editors
From: ruhtra@turing.toronto.edu (Arthur Tateishi)
Subject: Re: repeated character editing
Message-ID: <1991Mar30.024851.24414@jarvis.csri.toronto.edu>
Keywords: vi sed
Organization: CSRI, University of Toronto
References: <1991Mar28.181335.7813@cbnewsm.att.com>
Distribution: usa
Date: 30 Mar 91 07:48:51 GMT
Lines: 17

In article <1991Mar28.181335.7813@cbnewsm.att.com> cadman@cbnewsm.att.com (jerome.schwartz) writes:
>
>How would I do a simple edit command, vi map or sed script, to
>replace all occurrences of repeated characters in a file with one
>of each of the characters.
>
>ie:   This:   AAAAPPPPLLLLEEEE   ppppiiiieeee
>   to this:   APPLE pie

If your example was a typo and should have been: APLE pie
then the following reg-exp will work.
:s/\(.\)\1*/\1/g

-- 
Red Alert.
    -- Q, "Deja Q", stardate 43539.1
Arthur Tateishi                 g9ruhtra@zero.cdf.utoronto.edu